


Dog-tags

by ryoflame



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hansen Family Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-06
Updated: 2013-08-06
Packaged: 2017-12-22 14:31:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/914307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryoflame/pseuds/ryoflame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chuck was forced to grow up too fast and Herc knows it, but he hopes that he did the best he could for his son. He watches as Chuck holds few things dear, and pushes most things away, and he just wishes he could have done more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dog-tags

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Jaegercon Tumblr Bingo prompt 'dog tags'. This and all my other Jaegercon Bingo prompts can be found at http://jaegerparty.tumblr.com/

Chuck Hansen's dog-tags had been a gift from a father who had spent more time in military bases and in active duty than at home with his family. When he had been home, he had often been in uniform, and Chuck grew up thinking of the military and his father as one and the same.

Chuck had been nine when the first Kaiju his San Francisco. It has been four days until his tenth birthday, but the last thing anyone was thinking of was to organise a party for the young boy; people were enraptured by the images on television, straight out of a science fiction movie.

By the time the kaiju had been taken down by the military, Chuck's birthday had passed. He pretended it didn't matter, as best as a ten-year-old could.

A week later, when the kaiju clean-up was mostly under control, Herc Hansen had come home to give his family the comfort of seeing him alive and well even though he himself had not been involved in the initial attack on the creature. He had brought with him a gift for Chuck because he had never, not once, forgotten that it was his son's tenth birthday.

The gift was a bulldog pup which had slobbered all over the delighted boy with great enthusiasm, even as Angela Hansen half-heartedly protested that they didn't really have room for a pet.

'But _muuuum.'_ Chuck had whined, and it really didn't take very much convincing from the two men in Angela's life for her to agree to keep the fat little puppy that was energetically trying to wriggle its way out of Chuck's arms.

'Max!' Chuck had exclaimed, 'that's what I'll call him; Max.'

He noticed the dog-tags around the animal's neck almost immediately after that and gasped excitedly, pulling the chain off from around the pup to examine them; they were standard military issue, in black rubber silencers with Chuck's details stamped into the dull metal. The boy was awed, running his fingers over the letters and Herc couldn't help but feel a little pride. He was sure that one day his son would be a soldier.

* * *

Chuck rarely removed his dog-tags. He wore them from the day his father gave them to him, he wore them to school and showed them off to his friends, he wanted to keep them on even when he took a bath. His mother indulged him, seeing how much they meant to him.

He was wearing them the day his mother died in the Sydney kaiju attacks. He clutched them tightly in a small fist when his father told him, feeling the edges dig into his palm as tears stung his eyes.

The child within Chuck died that day, alongside his mother. After that day, he didn't smile again.

* * *

Dog-tags were unnecessary in the Jaeger Academy and in the Shatterdome, as the PPDC did not operate on standard military procedures. PPDC ID cards were a necessity in the Dome, but dog-tags were an outdated protocol; after all, they were primarily for the use of identifying a dead soldier in the field, and Jaeger pilots... well, usually if they didn't make it through a mission, there wasn't anything left to identify.

After his mother's death, Chuck Hansen had grown up in a military environment. He had vowed to himself that he would kill kaiju when he got older, and with his father on active duty he was transported from base to base, surrounded by protocol and commands, while his heart hardened more and more.

Herc saw it happening but was helpless to stop it. It broke his heart a little as he watched his young son quickly grow older than his years and turn his back on the warmth of family and friends.

And yet, despite the fact that Chuck began to shut his father out, despite the fact that he answered all of Herc's questions with curt replies and despite the fact that it wasn't necessary in the Shatterdome, Chuck never removed his dog-tags. The tags hung always around his neck unless he was suited up for Jaeger piloting, and even then he kept them close at hand in the Jaeger with him. Despite the military connotations, Herc could never see them as anything but a reminder of the little boy that Chuck had once been, before he had been forced to grow up.

Once he had tried to playfully talk about the tags, but Chuck had glowered at him in a way that let Herc know instantly that it was not up for discussion, not even to bring up good memories. He did not mention them again.

* * *

Saying goodbye to his son as he watched him go off on a suicide mission that the both of them knew Chuck would not come back from was one of the hardest things that Herc had ever done and most likely would ever have to do. There was nothing he could say that would make the parting easier for the two of them, and all the things that he _could_ have said swirled around in his mind like a whirlpool of emotion that sucked him down until he felt like he was drowning.

And yet, despite the fact he was unable to say anything meaningful, he felt like his son understood. The Drift held them together, even if they were not currently linked via the technology that made the Jaegers possible--Herc could swear he could feel Chuck's own emotions in with his own, and he had to choke down a sob as he watched the boy who had grown up too fast turn away from him for the last time.

* * *

The world was saved, but Herc Hansen's heart felt empty. He heard the cheers around him but they echoed into nothingness in his ears. He would always remember the moment that the light indicating Striker Eureka's position in the vast space of the Pacific had winked out, and he knew it would haunt his dreams for a long time to come.

Certainly he did not want to sleep now. Not ever again.

But after what felt like days of administrative work, of following protocol in the wake of the closure of the Breach, of congratulations and adulation and the pats on the back that he barely felt, the remaining two Jaeger pilots insisted that he rest. He would not have listened to anyone else, but at least they _understood_. Both of them had suffered losses as heavily as he himself had, and so he allowed himself to be led back to the room he had used to share with his son.

The room felt as empty as his heart. Max the bulldog shuffled over to him and sat on his feet, sensing his sadness and huffing for attention, but Herc was focused on something else.

Because there on his pillow lay Chuck Hansen's dog-tags, and as Herc picked them up in his hands, letting the ball-chain slide between shaking fingers, the hardened soldier whose son had helped save mankind finally allowed himself to cry.


End file.
